Guidance Tamil Nadu — the State’s investment promotion agency — has decided to crowdsource the designing of a mascot for the industry help-desk portal, Biz Buddy. It has invited students, artists and designers to participate in the mascot design competition.

The mascot will be used by Guidance Tamil Nadu, the State’s Industries Department and the government of Tamil Nadu for promotional and display purposes, and also for any other initiative as may be deemed appropriate by the State government.

The last date for submission is January 20. The first price will be ₹10,000, the second price is ₹5,000 and the third price is ₹3,000. The results will be announced by February 15, the agency said.

All entries submitted as a part of the competition will be an intellectual property of Guidance Tamil Nadu, the Industries Department and the Government of Tamil Nadu; the competition participants forego any right over it, according to information available on the Biz Buddy website.

Speedy resolution

Launched in December 2019, Biz Buddy is to facilitate monitoring and time-bound resolution of issues faced by industries. It is a platform for industries to submit a ‘Help Call’ on issues that have not been resolved previously by a government department. An authorised representative of a company can submit a request through the portal. Help calls shall be monitored and acted upon by the concerned Tamil Nadu government department(s).

Biz Buddy has three primary objectives — streamlined redressal mechanism for timely resolution of industrial investor’s unsolved issues, tracking and monitoring of investor issues in a real-time manner, and improving Tamil Nadu’s investment climate by enhancing the aftercare services provided to industrial investors, according to Guidance Tamil Nadu.

The time limit prescribed to respond is — nodal office - 0-6 days, HOD - 7-20 days, Secretary - 21-27 days; Chief Secretary - 28-34 days, and Chief Minister’s Office - 35-42 days.

As on December 11, 2020, a total of 119 help calls were received, of which 113 have been responded. The average time taken to respond to is 24 days and the median time being 10 days. The minimum time taken to respond is one day and the maximum is 60 days, according to the Biz Buddy website.

As of October 2020, over 20 government departments and agencies and over 150 officers, including all District Collectors have been onboarded and have been actively involved in the resolution of investors’ issues, says a newsletter of Guidance Tamil Nadu.

Feedback will be provided by users or will be useful to the government only when there is a commitment at the top levels that the feedback is valued and responded to with visible improvements in service quality. The commitment was made by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami as he announced the Biz Buddy via Rule 110 on the floor of the State Assembly.

The portal has a dynamic dashboard for government officers to monitor Help Calls assigned to them, the newsletter said.

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